Dream Team GB

The British team that files into Beijing's National Stadium for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics will be the largest, most lavishly funded and best-prepared GB squad ever to enter a summer Games. It remains to be seen whether it will leave as the most successful but, should it meet its target of finishing eighth in the medal table, it will justify the unprecedented level of public funding that has helped the team get to China.

To meet the eighth-place target set by UK Sport, the body that distributed funding to elite athletes, the 313-strong British team will probably need to win at least 35 medals, with more than 10 of them gold (its "stretch" figure is 41 medals). Such a haul would represent Britain's best performance since 1920, boycotted Games aside, and would set up British Olympic sport for its ultimate goal, fourth in the medal table at the London 2012 Games.

If Beijing is a staging post on the road to London, the march began in the unhappiest of times, the aftermath of the 1996 Atlanta Games. Then Britain languished 36th, the only gold coming courtesy of Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent. For a country that had spent the preceding two decades taking gold medals for granted, looking up at Ireland, New Zealand and Kazakhstan was a chastening experience. For once the calamity was timely.

Atlanta fell midway through one of the periodic government reviews of sports funding, and as civil servants and ministers agonised the evidence was unequivocal; something really did have to be done. With the National Lottery two years old, John Major's government agreed to reform legislation so that the proceeds could be used to fund people rather than just bricks and mortar, and in 1997 UK Sport became the first distributor to do so.

Working alongside the British Olympic Association, it set about targeting sports where improvements could be made. In the three years to the Sydney Games £59m was aimed at athletes, sailors, cyclists, rowers and swimmers, to startling effect. The 2000 Games were a success, with 28 medals, 11 of them gold, taking GB to 10th in the medal table, a position retained in 2004 when £70m helped secure nine gold and 30 medals.

UK Sport's funding for the Beijing cycle is £235m, much of which has been spent on talent identification and development. Around £90m has been aimed directly at elite athletes, however, a 20% rise intended to deliver a 25% increase in medals. For the London Games lottery funding has been augmented by £200m from the Treasury with a further £100m from the private sector, though DCMS is struggling to raise the latter.

Peter Keen, UK Sport's performance director, is confident that the money is delivering an improvement in performance and professionalism: "From where I sit this is the strongest team we have ever sent in the modern era," he said. "We have 17 sports that have got a shot at a medal, more than some of our nearest rivals. So there is a lot of strength in depth.

"We have two or three big multi-medal sports that the others can learn and feed off. There are half a dozen sports in which we have a bit of tradition and there are a lot of medals to be won, but we are yet to see the profound breakthrough. But they are absolutely up for it and on their way for London."

Keen acknowledges that, while the athletes have never had it so good, Team GB will rely on the usual sports to deliver in Beijing. Cycling, rowing and sailing, famously derided by an Australian journalist as "the sitting-down sports", will once again be the bedrock of any success. Since 1988 the three have contributed more than 50% of Britain's gold medals, and the majority of silver and bronze.

Of the three, cycling carries the greatest expectation. At the 2008 track world championships the British team won nine gold medals, half of the titles available, and two silver medals. Its official target for Bejing is six medals but even measured judges of the sport think the haul could be double that number, with perhaps five golds.

The sailors should not be far behind, with medal prospects in eight of the 11 classes including Ben Ainslie, who will become the most famous sailor since Drake if he manages a third Olympic title, and the rowers, the first GB team to travel to an Olympics without Redgrave or Pinsent since 1980, have three solid gold-medal chances.

There is unlikely to be an early gold-rush in Beijing, but the middle weekend promises to be Britain's best two days of the Games. Saturday the 16th will see Bradley Wiggins attempting to win two gold medals in the velodrome, Kelly Sotherton bidding for a medal in the heptathlon, the men's four trying to uphold rowing tradition and Ainslie fulfilling his dream. The next day could begin with Paula Radcliffe's second tilt at a marathon gold and be followed by genuine gold-medal chances for the men's lightweight pair and the women's quad. Other medal shots in action include Rebecca Romero in the women's pursuit, Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms in badminton and Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes in the 49er sailing class.

Should all of them perform to their ability, Britain's athletic investment will start to look like money well spent.

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